Vallee Foundation Director, Professor Dame Carol Robinson (Kavli Institute, University of Oxford) has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the European Patent Office (EPO). Each year, the EPO recognises exceptional individuals whose inventions are making a significant contribution across sectors to drive technological progress, improve our health, protect our planet and enhance our daily lives.

Dr Robinson received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for her development of native mass spectrometry (MS), transforming the study of proteins involved in various biological processes and diseases. Native MS is based on electrospray ionization and maintains the interactions of proteins in the gas phase, providing insights into their complex structures and binding partners. It allows researchers to investigate the intricate interactions and dynamics of proteins within their natural environments and represents a significant improvement over conventional mass spectrometry, which often alters the structures of these complex biological molecules. The technology has significantly advanced the development of drugs targeting proteins of interest. Although initially used for soluble proteins, Robinson has advanced native MS to electrospray membrane protein complexes from detergent micelles and even native lipid membranes.

By ionising proteins without disrupting their complex structures, Robinson's techniques enable a new perspective on the mechanisms underlying various biological processes and diseases. Despite scepticism over her early experiments, her work has proved instrumental in studying ribosomes, molecular chaperones and membrane proteins, providing unprecedented insights into their functions.

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